Coaching with a clear mind has allowed me to be better at my job. It has allowed me to open up to my team and share experiences. It has made us closer. I have friends that I truly could not live without. We are a unique family that exists from similar experiences. I coach boys high school basketball and yes, I'm gay.

Graham Moore encouraged the kid out there who doesn't fit in to #stayweird in his Oscar's acceptance speech because he knows that his "weirdness" comes from a perfect and authentic part of himself; it's what makes him "different" and creative.

We have had five nor'easters in a month and nearly four feet of snow are still piled high here in the boondocks of eastern Connecticut. Throw in arctic temperatures, ice, wind, the monotony of a gray-and-white landscape, and cabin fever, and even a resilient Yankee heart can sink.

My bus came into view and I said goodbye. As I got on the bus and sat down, the young man smiled and waved at me. I waved back and wondered what his life would have been like if he had received the kind of support and opportunities I was lucky enough to have obtained.

Kaela Wilton is a 16-year-old student at Onoway Jr./Sr. High School in Alberta, Canada. For an art project, approved by her art teacher and the school principal, she depicted two young men in an affectionate kiss. After its unveiling and subsequent complaints, the school covered the mural and would not allow it to be seen.

You may feel like your future is slipping from your grasp, that if you don't rush now to greet your dreams you might lose out on them, but please wait. If you are coming from an unsupportive environment with regards to your sexual orientation, the best thing to do is to establish your independence.

No one who has ever come out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender to their family, particularly their parents, will ever forget that life-altering moment. Sometimes the connective thread will be cut; other times that bond will be deepened, enriched by this new reality.

My own early years acclimating as a gay man carry some of the deepest wounds of my life. For a while, I sacrificed my education, carried shame about my sexuality, made horrible dating choices, and looked for my self-esteem in the nightclubs. Now I have a deep and visceral need to give Griffin the advice and friendship from an older gay man that I didn't have.

When one of my new straight-male friends asked if he could sit in on a QSA meeting, I immediately said yes and took him to a panel on LGBT dating, hoping to show him how cool the queer community is. The discussion was mostly civil, until my fledgling ally worked up the courage to ask one simple question.

Alexander first realized he was gay at 5 years old thanks to a Hercules pillow set, a secret comfort he could turn to when he couldn't explain himself to his friends at school. The pillow was his "boyfriend," he says.

Together, if we have the tenacity to strive for an even more just and inclusive world, we can make this generation of young people the first to know what it feels like to, in Leelah's words, always be "treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights."

We're winning when young people have the internet's arsenal at the ready. We're winning when online discourse translates into offline action. We're winning when seemingly "niche" groups reflect a new generation of LGBT people who defend their own survival, and others.

I truly believe if American Christians stayed more focused on the message and teachings of Jesus, many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people would not have the annual angst of searching for home for the holidays.

Danny was never able to forget what it meant to be a homeless teen. He overcame homelessness and built a good life for himself, but he bore the scars in his psyche, and in his body. He contracted hepatitis while he was homeless; it shortened his life.

After viewing his sermon and interview, in honor of Pastor Steven L. Anderson, I made donations to a center here in New York City that provides assistance to homeless LGBT youths, and to an organization that delivers meals to people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses.

I feel like I owe it to those people to speak up and speak out, but I also owe it to myself to respect myself enough not to toss out my experiences carelessly. Like I said before, I'm cool with talking about gender. It's something that needs to be talked about.

As a young gay man in conservative southern Indiana, I had lots of reasons to argue that LGBTQ scholarships were indeed very necessary. I dreamed of going to college in NYC where I could express myself freely. However, with my mom's very low income the idea of affording college in NY seemed an impossible dream.